This site is made possible by its sponsors. Please visit them!

gender issues - The word "gender" refers to sexual identity. Nearly all of us are either male or female — a simple place to start. It gets more complicated when we realize that there are many ways to interpret what maleness and femaleness can mean to each of us. What it means to be, perceive, and interact with other people depends, at least in part, on how each of us understands one another's maleness or femaleness. Those meanings are invariably deeply important in every person's life — socially (economically, educationally, politically, sexually, etc.), and of course artistically. Because the implications can range from those at superficial levels to those of tremendous consequence, gender issues have always carried great potential for controversy, often resulting from unfortunate stereotypes.

Xenophobia has been a virulent evil across many cultures, across time and around the world. Its subcategories include racism, sexism, homophobia, and religious intolerance.

Gender issues might pose or address such questions as:

1. What are historical and current gender stereotypes? Which are formed genetically and which are formed socially? How do these function in society? In art?
2. What constitutes erotica, obscenity, and pornography? Where do they come from? What are their effects? Are some legitimate and some not? How? When? Why? What place do they have in art?
3.  
4.  

Feminism and feminist art might be understood as dealing with a certain set of gender issues.

Examples of art concerned with gender issues:

Martin Wong (American, contemporary), Big Heat, 1988, synthetic polymer on canvas, 60 1/8 x 48 inches (152.7 x 121.9 cm), Whitney Museum of American Art, NY.

American, Northern Sun Merchandising, Minneapolis, MN, Oh, So That Explains the Difference in Our Salaries!, 1988, offset lithograph.

Nan Goldin (American, 1953-), Jimmy Paulette and Tabboo! undressing, NYC, 1991, photograph on paper, 101.5 x 69.5 cm, Tate Gallery, London. Attracted to the glamor of the world of drag-queens and transvestites, Golden's photographs show candor and empathy for the lives of her close friends. Here are two men in the midst of their gender transformation.

Nan Goldin, Misty and Jimmy Paulette in a taxi, NYC, 1991, photograph on paper, 69.5 x 101.5 cm, Tate Gallery, London.

ArtPage links to other websites consistent with our mission to expand knowledge of contemporary and historical art and visual culture. We believe these sites represent the range and diversity of such sites on the Internet, but their inclusion on our list does not constitute an endorsement by ArtPage, nor is the list intended to be comprehensive. We hope it will serve as a departure point to websites that are resources concerning art relating to gender issues, and we welcome your suggestions for other possible links.

• Behind the Mask is a Website magazine on Gay and Lesbian affairs in Africa, based in Johannesburg. See its arts and culture section.
  
  
• The Estate Project for Artists with AIDS is in West Hollywood, CA.
  
  
• The Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN), is an outstanding American organization working to ensure safe and effective schools for all students. Its Safe Schools Action Network allows people to target key education decisionmakers with the click of a mouse. Students, you can register your student club (commonly known as a GSA) or learn more about student organizing throughout the nation. Educators, you can find supportive educational resources and curriculum tools, and BookLink, GLSEN's online publications supplier. Local chapters around the nation help make GLSEN's vision a reality in all of our communities. Locate one nearest to you.
  GLSEN emphasizes the following goals for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) students:
  • 1: Make anti-LGBT bullying, harassment and name calling unacceptable in America's schools.
  • 2: Engage and empower educators as partners in creating schools where every student can fully participate in school life.
  • 3: Ensure that the national agenda to create effective schools includes LGBT issues.
    
    
• Lesbians in the Visual Arts: an international network for dialogue about issues in contemporary art as well as issues specific to being a lesbian in the visual arts.
  
  
• Names Project. A site that evokes the spirit of the AIDS Memorial Quilt.
  
  
• National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington, DC. "The only museum in the world dedicated exclusively to recognizing the contributions of women artists."
  
  
• Walt Whitman Hypertext Archive presents digitized images of Whitman's writings in their original documentary forms.
  
  
• Wild Hearts: Lesbian Sacred Sexuality & Arts features photography, poetry and music by Elsa Gidlow, Jennifer Berezan, and Marcelina Martin.
  
  
• Yerba Buena Center for the Arts presents art and arts education that emphasize the diverse artists and communities of the San Francisco Bay Area. Presentations by local, national and international artists serve to engage audiences in the visual and performing arts, film, video, and education.
  
  
• Sears' Queer History Timeline.
  
  
• People with a History: An Online Guide to Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Trans* History, from Fordham University.
  
  
• National Gay and Lesbian Task Force.

Also see androcentrism, censorship, degenerate, erotica and erotic art, fascist aesthetic, feminism and feminist art, fig leaf, First Amendment rights, lookism, love, nude, obscenity, patriarchy and patriarchal, political correctness, pornography, sex, straight, world-view, xenophilia, xenophobia, and zeitgeist.

https://inform.quest/_art